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Archbishop Discusses Pope's Visit to Canada
Aired July 23, 2002 - 14:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: He may be frail, but boy is he determined. Pope John Paul II arrived a short time ago in Toronto for one of his favorite occasions, World Youth Day. The pontiff braved a stiff wind as he crept down the stairs of Shepherd One.
And our Frank Buckley was there.
Frank, pretty emotional welcome.
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Really an incredible welcome, Kyra. None of us were expecting the pope to come down that flight of stairs on his own. We had all been warned by church officials that the pope, because of his health situation, would be coming down from the back of the airplane and would be helped down on a scissors truck. In fact, he came all the way down the stairs on his own, then came up the red carpet.
Joining me again Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Halifax.
Archbishop, again, your reaction to what you we able to experience with us live.
ARCHBISHOP TERRENCE PRENDERGAST, HALIFAX: Well, I was thrilled with the energy and determination that the pope had. He clearly wants to make this World Youth Day a key part of his pontificate. And he's going to do it again. He told everybody he wanted to come, and he's shown us that he's making effort. I think he's inviting our young people from southern Canada and the northern United States to come to World Youth Day.
BUCKLEY: It was quite a moving moment, wasn't it?
PRENDERGAST: It was. I brought back to memories of my own meetings with the pope. I have seen him grow older over the years. But this was a very moving one. And I'm looking forward to meeting him on Saturday, when (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
BUCKLEY: He really surprised all of us, the way he came down the stairs and then appeared on the platform and moved into the hangar. Once inside the hangar, he spoke to the assembled guests.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POPE JOHN PAUL II: Too many lives begin and end without joy, without hope. That is one of the principal reasons for the World Youth Day: Young people are coming together to commit themselves in the strengths of their faith, Jesus Christ, to the great cause of peace and human solidarity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BUCKLEY: The pope, after delivering his remarks, boarded a helicopter that took him to Strawberry Island. In fact, just, I guess, about a minute ago, you might have been able to hear, as we were going to that tape of the pope speaking, you may have heard a helicopter over my voice. We just saw the three fleet of helicopters that include the pope's helicopter fly right over the top of us as it went to Strawberry Island. That is the retreat where he will be staying.
You're looking live now at a picture of Prince's Gate, the area here at Exhibition Place, where we are. Some of the hundreds of thousands of young people who are gathering now in Toronto for the World Youth Day activities that will be surrounding the pope's visit here during the next several days -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Oh, Frank, tell us a little bit more about World Youth Day and what's going to take place, the purpose behind it.
BUCKLEY: Well, let me ask the archbishop to join us on that question. The purpose of World Youth Day -- and we know that the pope himself came up with this in the mid-'80s.
PHILLIPS: Well, it all began, I think, when he was a university chaplain and he would take people on kayaking and hiking trips and discover that in those moments of relaxation and recreation that young people would raise with him issues of importance in their own love lives, their own sense of value in society and in work and all those kinds of things. I think he wanted to do something like this after be becoming pope. And somebody must have suggested an idea, and he got them together, beginning in Rome, and now it's just spread around the world. So it's been a way of continuing what he did as young priest and a young bishop.
BUCKLEY: It's one thing of the things we are told that the pope most likes to do, is to be around young people. As one sister was telling us yesterday, it youthens him, it gives him energy and inspiration. So a great deal ahead here during the next several days. We'll be here throughout the week.
PHILLIPS: He sure does have incredible energy.
Frank Buckley, thank you, and thanks to the archbishop also.
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